Nine local netballers have been selected into an inaugural talent academy.
Netball SA will pilot the Adelaide Thunderbirds Talent Academy in 2022, to further strengthen South Australia’s pathway from grassroots netball to the elite level.
The Adelaide Thunderbirds Talent Academy will build upon the long-standing Netball SA academy program and has been designed to allow talent-identified athletes, coaches, and umpires to better connect with the Thunderbirds.
Each year approximately 80 athletes aged between 14-16 years will be selected to take part in the new program.
They will train together five times a year, including two sessions at Netball SA Stadium, with the program also involving Thunderbird specialist coaching and access to Thunderbird players.
Well-known young netballers Abby Denton, Ella Easterby, Lillie Paul and Lauren Van Eedan from Western Border, KNT’s Andrea Fuentes, Abby Mules, Tess Porter and Piper Stenner, and Mid SE’s Chloe Peacock have been selected for the academy.
The selections were held recently with 247 players from across the state vying for a position.
They academy will be led by four of South Australia’s most experienced coaches in Brian Lines, Kirsty Leonard-Down, Lee-Anne Cummins and Judy Greenwood.
The quartet will be supported by specialist high performance coaches as well as a number of assistant coaches.
Netball SA CEO Bronwyn Klei said the Adelaide Thunderbirds Talent Academy was an exciting development, built around connecting aspiring South Australian netballers with their local role models.
“In South Australia, we have long had a strong, successful elite pathway – we’re currently the national champions at 15U, 17U and 19U level – but to stay ahead we have to keep innovating, and we believe this new structure will take what’s good and make it even better,” Ms Klei said.
“By reinventing the program to better connect with the Adelaide Thunderbirds, we’re giving our athletes, coaches and umpires a stronger link to the best netball competition in the world, Suncorp Super Netball.
“We’re also thrilled to have the wealth of knowledge that our coaching staff bring to this program and have full confidence in their ability to prepare our future netball stars for the elite level.”
The current Academy Program was launched 20 years ago and underwent its last significant change in 2014.
